


Up To Something

by IShipThem



Category: Sister Claire (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 13:59:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5007415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IShipThem/pseuds/IShipThem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oscar and Catharine are sure up to something, but for once, Maman guesses it wrong.</p><p>(Written as a B-Day gift for Ash)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up To Something

“Now, now,” Maman says, halting by the door before she gets pushed out of her own home.  _“What_  are you two girls up to?”

Oscar and Catharine are biting their lips something fierce – even as Maman watches, they sink their teeth harder, small shoulders shaking, eyes brightly twinkling. Heavens above, but if she’s ever seen two children trying so hard to keep from giggling! They look like they’re about to burst out of their own skins with excitement.

“Up to?” Oscar repeats, and looks at Catharine. Her chest bubbles with laughter. “Catharine, are we up to something?”

“ _Us?”_ Catharine echoes, one hand flying to clutch at her chest – the other hand soon follows, covering her lips, trying to hide another burst of giggles. “ _Us?”_  She has to stop, choking on laughter. “Of course we are not up to anything!”

“Preposterous!” Oscar agrees, beaming up at Maman. “Absurd!  _Us!_  Up to something! I’ve never heard anything this outrageous before in my  _life!”_

“We just want you to have a nice, long walk,” Catharine interjects. She tries to work her face into something serious and earnest. “Very long.”

“It’s a lovely day out!” Oscar pips in. “Sunny! You don’t have to work tonight!”

“You could go to the beach!”

“Visit some friends!”

“You haven’t been to Queen Sylvia’s for so long!”

 _“Yes!”_  Oscar screams, like Catharine has just figured out the secret to eternal life. “Queen Sylvia! She must miss you! You  _should_  visit her!”

“Here’s your hat!” Catharine adds, going on tiptoe to try to put in Maman’s head. She bends her knees obligingly. “We love you! Bye bye!”

“Bye!”

And together, they put their hands on the small of her back and try to pretend they are not shoving until she’s out the door.

Which slams closed behind her.

Well, now. Maman has to run all the way to the street so they can’t hear her laughing. Oscar, why,  _yes_ , Oscar she would’ve expected – but she’d have thought Catharine would go about this a bit more gracefully. And shouldn’t Bruno be the one distracting her? Where  _is_  that man, Sabine wonders!

Confronted with a long day ahead of her, and seeing as she’s been banned from the home, Maman decides she might as well go and visit Sylvia. Fixing the hat in her head, she’s in her way.

Pedro, whom she remembers as a skinny boy running around the  _boulangerie,_ greets her outside the Queen’s office. He has baby food in his hair. Sabine knows for a fact Queen Sylvia noticed and hasn’t told him, which makes her think there’s money passing hands between the other guards. She can’t very well blame them, as she also knows for a fact Pedro carries a truly astounding amount of baby pictures in his pockets.

“Maman!” he greets her, very white smile against very dark skin. As always, his accent tilts her name heavily in his lips. “What a lovely sight. How are you doing in this equally lovely, completely ordinary day, in which nothing of notice at all is happening?”

She swats at him playfully. “Now, you. You know your charm won’t ever work with me, young man. Don’t you have a husband and child at home?”

Pedro laughs, then puts one hand to his forehead and sighs dramatically. “Woe is me, Maman! Yes, I do, and the first is convinced the latter is suffering of a mysterious, possibly deadly disease still unknown to man.”

Sabine tips one eyebrow. Pedro smiles ruefully. “Luiza’s got a cold.”

She has to laugh at this, even though, of course, she completely understands. Sabine remembers days, weeks, months, in which Oscar coughing sent her heart to the stratosphere and back, and Catharine stumbling anywhere  _near_  the stairs almost gave her a coronary. For that, she gives Pedro a stern look. “I better not be hearing you left him  _alone_  at home with a sick baby.”

Pedro looks properly horrified. “What kind of man do you take me for? No, of course not. He’s with his mom.” He shakes his head at the very notion. “Leave Maurice alone. What have I ever done to you that you’d say something like that to me?”

Maman pats his cheek affectionately, aware that he’s holding back laughter – bitten lips and hands covering lips never really go away, do they, just turn into the scratch of a beard and a twinkle in the eyes. “I’m sure I could remember a thing or two,” she tells him. “Now why don’t you be a dear and go check if Sylvia might like to take a walk, yes? I’m sure she could use one. Are they keeping her terribly busy today, you reckon?”

Pedro shrugs, but then rights his spine, setting his shoulders straight – in under one second he goes from skinny orphan kid living in a back room to the personal guard of Queen Sylvia of Thronum Mare. Maman wonders if Oscar will ever look something like that; if she’ll ever watch her go from very cute rooster to gleaming armors and swishing swords. She has no doubts about gleaming armors. But if she’ll ever stop trying to fix Oscar’s fluffy hair in the mornings, well now, that she can’t promise.

“I’ll go and inform her you’re here, Sabine,” Pedro tells her, politely, fixing his armor one last time. “I’m sure she can manage—”

From inside the room, something goes  _BANG_  very loudly. Sabine doesn’t see him move – next thing she knows the door is wide open and Pedro is inside and the sword is halfway out of its scabbard when he stops. Tension bleeds out of his shoulders. Assuming there’s no imminent danger, she takes a step after him.

Sylvia is sitting at her desk, looking down at a stapler with such a sour expression, you’d think it has just offended her honor. There’s a mess of scattered papers underneath it. Never once breaking her glare, she tells Pedro; “Everything is fine,” but her voice is clipped and tense and Maman almost feels sorry for that poor stapler.

“Hm,” Pedro says, awkward. “Well—”

“I would just,” Queen Sylvia interrupts, closing her eyes, then clenching her teeth. “Like to go through  _one_  day of work without having to deal with someone else’s messes. That is all.  _One day.”_  She takes a second to calm down, drawing a deep breath. In and out. “But I’m sorry, Pedro. You can go back to your—oh!”

As soon as her eyes catch on Maman, her whole expression changes. She’s up in a snitch, smiling from ear to ear, and reaching for her halfway across the room. “Sabine! Oh, but I  _am_  glad to see you!”

“So am I, dear!” Maman replies, reaching for her hand too and bringing one to her lips. Sylvia immediately goes pink. Then starts giggling. “What has you in such a dreadful mood, my friend? Who has wronged you? Shall I have a talk with them? Cause I will.” Sylvia giggles harder and Maman winks at her. “You know I will.”

“Oh! Oh, no, no, Sabine, you mustn’t,” Sylvia says, pressing her kissed fingers to her own lips. “Who am I kidding – I’d love it if you did – but I’d hate to have you arrested for treason. No, it’s quite all right. I’ll live.”

“Treason?” Maman repeats, one hand going to her hip, one eyebrow up to her hairline. “Did I just walk into a couple’s quarrel, dear?”

“What?” Sylvia blinks, then blinks again, then laughs. “ _Oh._ Oh, no. Not Michel, no. It’s—” She waves her hand impatiently. “Some third cousin of his or such that feels the need to protest every single word I say. I’m sure he thinks I’ll tire before he does.”

“Does he now!” Sabine says, smacking her lips. “Hm! Well, I’m sure he’s in for a surprise, isn’t he? Yes, I’m sure. Now, dear.” She takes Sylvia’s hand and settles it on her arm. “Would the city survive, you think, if we took a quick walk? I confess I’m afraid for your window if you stay cooped up any longer. Have you ever gotten a stapler to your head? No? Me neither, but I’m sure it would hurt plenty.”

Sylvia’s laughing at that, and Sabine’s glad to hear it, yes. She’s also ready to pull the b-card off her sleeve, but Sylvia nods at once, settling on her arm. “I’d love to go for a walk,” she says.

Out they go, into the hallways and then the gardens. Pedro follows them a couple steps behind, eyes sharp and hand ready at the hilt of his sword. Maman surrenders her hat to Sylvia after much squinting and blinking, then hushes her protests. “No, not at all, I can cope with a little sun. It looks lovely on you. You wear it.” And Sylvia relents.

“Oh, why don’t we make a little detour this time?” she proposes at a fork in their usual route. “Michel’s planted a new variety of flowers over by the back wall, and I keep forgetting their names. Why don’t we see if you can remind me?”

Maman agrees, though she finds it a tad odd. Sylvia hasn’t forgotten the name of a soul she’s met for as long as they’ve known each other, and she’s met plenty of new people through Oscar. Still, flowers and people are not the same. And the King has such a penchant for specimens with unpronounceable names!

They go around the back, and come to a fancy gazebo that could probably hold the whole of Sabine’s first flour. There’s curtains around it, all drawn. Looks like a damn waste to her, to have a gazebo that won’t catch a single breeze, but Sylvia is leading them there, so Sabine withholds judgment. Maybe this variety of flower thrives best in the shade.

Pedro hurries ahead of them to part the curtains on the front steps. He looks very chevalier while doing it, but Maman has known him since his face was all pimples and smudges of jam. She fixes him a knowing look. “Now, you come out with it,” she tells him, not noticing Sylvia slipping from her arm. “What exactly are you up—”

“ _SURPRISE!”_

Maman’s heart catapults right into her ribcage.  _“Holy cricket!_ ” she gasps, jumping back quick as lightning. The curtains are thrown open. Light floods in the gazebo, breaking the grey shades into goldens and reds and whites.

 _“Happy Birthday, Maman!”_  Oscar and Catharine cry out together in sheer delight. While Sabine is still standing there, gaping, they rush to her, throwing her arms around her waist hard enough to tackle a smaller woman. “Surprise!”

“Why, you—you little rascals!” Sabine starts laughing, reaching down to squeeze the two of them. Their feet leave the floor and they yelp with laughter, squirming and twitching and pressing kisses to her cheeks. “Was that your plan all along? And you got me entirely fooled!”

Catharine and Oscar are laughing too hard to answer at first. “It was Cat’s idea,” Bruno informs her, coming down the steps with a package that’s all bows and duct tape. “She was very insistent about it.”

“She said,” Oscar interrupts, breathless, excited out of her skin. “That if we did it at home, you’d figure it out for sure!”

“You thought we wanted you out the house, didn’t you?” Catharine asks, and she looks damn pleased with herself. Sabine swoops down to give both of them a big kiss.

“You clever girls!” she beams, discreetly wiping a naughty tear with her wrist. “And did you get Sylvia in on all of this?”

“That they did,” Sylvia agrees, putting one hand to Oscar’s shoulder. Oscar rights herself proudly. “A good thing, too, as I had no idea at all it was your birthday!”

“Oh, well. I didn’t want to boast it,” Sabine replies, taking a look at the assembly before her. The whole house is here, as well as Nib and Geneviève, and a cake so covered in frosting, she thinks she’ll need a shove just to get to the cake part. Another stubborn tear leaves her eyes. “Oh, you clever,  _clever_  girls.”

“Did you like it, Maman?” Oscar asks, quieter this time. Her body is a warm weight at Sabine’s side. Soon enough, she won’t be able to sweep her up at all anymore. Catharine rests her head against Maman’s chest.

“Oh, dear heart,” Sabine tells her truthfully. “I love it.”


End file.
